The volume of traffic through mobile wireless networks connected to the Internet is high and is projected to become much higher. Reasons include the increasing variety of devices being introduced as or transformed into wireless mobile user equipment, and the increasing variety of services available through the Internet. As one illustrative example, in addition to devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptops, new digital cameras may be directly connected, via built-in wireless networking interfaces, for uploading images, and vehicle on-board computer systems, many having subscription-based added services, are becoming more commonplace.
One primary goal of such mobile user equipment and their related systems is global mobility, meaning reliable, secure connection across all geographical areas, with roaming ability, to a continually broadening range of services. Illustrative examples of such services include e-mail, web browsing, virtual office networking, publish-subscribe push and push-pull systems, telephony communications, and various web business services.
Another primary goal is manageability from the perspective of the service providers. Manageability includes accurate monitoring of use and of the services provided. This in turn assists service providers in quality control, and in providing flexible, accurate, use-based billing.
The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), developed under the Third Generation Partnership Project (3G) cellular network standard, was developed in view of these and other goals.
The Long Term Evolution (LTE), sometimes referred to as “4G,” is foreseen as a next significant step toward the goals of global mobile service for the user, and of accurate monitoring, billing, controls and maintenance of communication traffic. Also, increased adoption of certain services, such as Multimedia Online Gaming (MMOG), mobile TV, mobile podcasting, and various streaming media, has given additional impetus to LTE.
LTE may not yet be an actual official standard, but its specification is sufficiently complete and fixed that significant development efforts, including construction and testing toward large-scale commercial embodiments, are underway by major service providers.
Related Art FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of an LTE system architecture, generally labeled as 10. The overall system architecture of system 10, in accordance with the LTE is an all-packet system, currently referred to in the industry as the Evolved Packet System (EPS).
Referring to Related Art FIG. 1, the representative example LTE system 10 includes a plurality of evolved Radio Access Networks (E-UTRANs), such as the one representative E-UTRAN 12, each composed of an evolved NodeB, (eNodeB) base station 12A communicating to a plurality of User Equipments (UEs), such as the representative UE 12B, via an evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access E-UTRA radio network specification. The E-UTRAN messaging is a packet protocol.
In the LTE architecture, as shown in example 10, Serving Gateway (S-GW) 14 receives, routes and forwards user packets, based on the header information, and acts as the mobility anchor for the user plane during, for example, handovers of a UE 12B from one eNodeB base station 12A to another eNodeB base station 12A. The SGW 14 also manages and stores certain UE contexts such as, for example, provided parameters of the IP bearer services, and E-UTRAN internal routing information. The S-GW 14 also provides replication, based on header information, of UE traffic for purposes of lawful interception. Referring again to example 10 shown in to FIG. 1, in an LTE system a Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN-GW) 16 provides the connectivity by the UEs 12B to a Packet Data Network 18. The PDN-GW 16 of an LTE system performs policy (e.g., of a business entity) enforcement, packet filtering, charging support, packet screening and lawful interception, including deep packet inspection (DPI)-based enforcement, filtering and screening, and lawful interception.
As also shown in the example 10, a typical LTE system includes a Mobile Management Entity (MME) 19 that performs functions including authenticating users, assigning temporary identification to UEs 12, and controlling hand-off of a UE 12 from one eNodeB base station 12A to another eNodeB 12A within the same LTE. Further, a typical LTE system may include, to accommodate earlier systems, a UTRAN network 102 connecting, though a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) 104, to the S-GW 14.
As known in the telecommunication industry, the LTE was developed in view of an ongoing market shift toward all-IP mobile access systems as a solution for mobility, cost reduction and with DPI behind the PDN-GW 16, application-aware monitoring and management for expanded revenue generation options, and availability for more QoS based billing by, for example, charging and by prioritization of packet switching according to application type.
The present inventors have, however, identified certain inherent limitations with the present LTE 16 arising from, for example, and integral to the LTE's basic and fundamentals specification and definition of its Serving Gateway, e.g., the FIG. 1 system 10 S-GW 14, and its PDN gateway, e.g., the system 10 PDN-GW 16.
One of these inherent limitations is that the LTE Serving Gateway, exemplified by the FIG. 1 system 10 S-GW 16, cannot be used as a subscriber enforcement point for any policy that is application dependent, meaning that it is dependent, to any extent, on information obtainable only through DPI-processing of packets received from or destined to the E-UTRAN 12 for all cases of UEs communication. First, the LTE Serving Gateway, such as S-GW 16, cannot be used as such an enforcement point because the Serving Gateway is not capable of performing deep packet inspection. Further, the LTE Serving Gateway cannot be used as an enforcement point such because subscriber enforcement includes discard based on policy, but discarding in front of, instead of behind of, the PDN-GW, after encapsulation into a packet data network format, would make a charging/credit/policy employed logically behind the P-GW inaccurate.
Another limitation is that the SG-W 16 cannot employ a local, packet-content based break-out or other route optimization for traffic requiring application identification and, instead, necessitates that the packets traverse the DPI-enabled PDN-GW 18. This shortcoming may result if difficulty in implementing application-level dependent processing across the system.
Another limitation is that roaming traffic, such as UEs 12B being first handed to one of the e-NodeB 12A base stations of a RAN 12, arrives directly on the S-GW 16, making it further difficult, if not impossible, to apply DPI-based processing on that traffic.